While the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, faces criticism for again ruling out pill testing, instead vowing to ban the Defqon.1 festival, the paper by researchers Jodie Grigg, Monica Barratt and Simon Lenton brings the effectiveness of the government’s hardline stance into question.

In an anonymous survey of nearly 2,000 festival-goers, the researchers found “almost all … surveyed did not report being deterred from drug usage by the expected presence of drug dogs”.

Two dead and three critically ill after suspected overdoses at Defqon.1 festival in Sydney

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“Of those who expected dogs to be present at their last festival (647 people), only 4% reported that this threat led them to decide not to take drugs,” the researchers said.

Instead, those surveyed were more likely to better conceal their stash (48%), ask someone else to carry their drugs (15%), or buy substances inside the festival (11%).

A further 10% said they would take less easily detected drugs, while 7% said they would take them before entering the festival.

Calling for the policing tactic to be “urgently reconsidered”, the researchers also found 10% of those who had drugs on them when they saw a detection dog had responded by consuming their drugs.

The paper’s findings mirror a 2006 NSW ombudsman’s report that was also critical of sniffer dogs. The researchers said there had been at least 10 drug-related deaths at music festivals in the past five years.

It comes amid a renewed national debate about pill testing, sparked by the deaths of Joseph Pham, 23, from western Sydney, and a 21-year-old woman from Victoria at the weekend. Pham reportedly shared social media posts that described the anxiety caused by sniffer dogs.

“We’re tried zero tolerance many, many times,” Alex Wodak, the president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, told Guardian Australia. “Now we’ve had saturation policing at Defqon1 and still these tragic events are taking place. Sooner or later, a government in Australia is going to get compassionate and sensible. Until they do, the premier and police are going to be hammered mercilessly.”

Ruling out a pill-testing trial and vowing to ban Defqon.1, Berejiklian said she was “absolutely aghast” at the fatalities.

“I never want to see this event held in Sydney or New South Wales ever again – we will do everything we can to shut this down,” she said.

She said that those advocating pill testing were “giving the green light to drugs”.

That claim was strongly disputed by harm minimisation advocates who carried out Australia’s first pill testing trial at Groovin the Moo.

“What we’re saying to them is, ‘Just pause, come and talk to us, let us analyse what you’re about to take,’” Gino Vumbaca, the president of Harm Reduction Australia, told Guardian Australia. “And then we’ll talk to people about what the implications are, what the alternatives are, what to do if there’s a problem, and then let them make a choice. It can hardly be seen as an endorsement or a promotion of drug use.”

In Victoria, the state government has also ruled out pill testing in the state, a decision that has again prompted the University of Melbourne’s student union to distribute pill testing kits to students ahead of the festival season.

David Caldicott, an emergency consultant and senior clinical lecturer in medicine at the Australian National University, warned that the DIY tests were inadequate.

“I can understand why people might turn to these sorts of kits but the experts who are chemists and analysts believe the market has changed to the extent that we should really be encouraging laboratory grade kits on site,” Caldicott told Guardian Australia.

Caldicott, who returned from a pill-testing conference in Europe at the weekend, said his colleagues had regarded Australia’s drugs policies “as a little bit simple”.

The authors of the new research, from Curtin University’s National Drug Research Institute, the Drug Policy Modelling Program at UNSW, and the Burnet Institute, did not make an explicit recommendation for pill testing.

But they say “consideration should be given to more evidence informed responses which are consistent with Australia’s harm minimisation policy”.

They also found 97% of those surveyed who were carrying drugs had entered the festival undetected, suggesting “this policing strategy was largely ineffective at detecting drugs on festival-goers”.

The paper will be published in the October edition of the International Journal of Drug Policy.